White Papers

The Ultimate Poultry Watering Guide An effective watering system only performs as well as the farmer knows how to make it. It seems like such a simple thing, but sometimes even the smallest errors can have a detrimental effect on flock performance. Not to worry, we’re here to explain everything that you need to know […]

Rearing pullets means growers must be aware of all the management practices that make a healthy, reproductive bird. A productive breeder hen must hit a target weight by a particular age and have proper body conformation in order to be stimulated into egg laying. Flock uniformity is crucial to a productive hen house. A flock […]

Commercial swine farming has had a long history, but it’s only more recently we see it beginning to repeat itself. When farming was more concerned with plant crops, farmers kept enough livestock to feed themselves and their neighbors. The pigs were raised with little direct management, left to forage for food, fed leftover scraps and […]

Biosecurity is the prevention and control of pathogenic microorganisms from contacting animal or human populations. In the context of modern poultry production, it is essentially keeping the birds separate from the agents causing the disease. Used properly, biosecurity will also minimize the effect of disease and contain the spread of disease, if found. As such, […]

Egg farmers started bringing chickens indoors in the 1940s and 1950s in order to keep them safe from diseases and predators. Today, the egg industry is facing pressure from animal welfare groups, consumers, and food chains vowing to use only cage-free eggs. The lack of unified guidelines and industry conflict on what “cage-free” really looks […]

Animal husbandry of dry (pregnant) sows in the United States is in the midst of a transition from indoor individual gestation stall housing to indoor loose housing with group pens that enables greater sow socialization, space, movement and choice. Committed to this conversion, many U.S. sow producers are actively retrofitting existing barns and designing new […]